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Running As Miami Famous: The Miami Marathon & Tropical 5k

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It’s Wednesday and I am still waddling like a duck; this must mean it was Miami Marathon weekend.   I know this because for the past two years my husband Joe ran the marathon and he looked something like this:

As I wrote here, I was trained to finish the Miami Marathon at a comfortable pace, but not to kill it.  All I wanted was to come in before the five hour mark; that magic number would somehow allow me to consider myself a marathoner without the need to come back to prove something to myself.  

Yet, what was special about this weekend was that it wasn’t all about me.  It started on Saturday, when the Florida Dairy Farmers gave my family entries to race the Tropical 5k. I am already sponsored by Got Chocolate Milk, am part of Team #REFUEL, my kids drink milk constantly so taking the entries to promote them was a no brainer.

The Tropical 5k turned out to be a great race.  This was our fifth family 5k so we have our strategy down: I take Fearless, Joe runs with Dreamer, and we each have different run/walk intervals.  The race began at the Children’s Museum and ran down the MacArthur Causeway onto Miami Beach.  For those of you not from Miami, running that route without the fear of being run over by a car is a joy.  It was stunning to run next to the cruise-lined Port of Miami to your right, and manicured lawns of celebrity mansions to your left. Even Fearless at six years old was enjoying the view. 

I told him he was so lucky.  Other kids were stuck at home since it was too cold to play outside.  And him? He gets to be running somewhere he is not usually allowed.  All because he chose to get up early, lace up his shoes and race.  I talk up healthy habits to the boys; I make these occasions special.

And each race with my kids is special indeed.

Obviously, we all refueled with chocolate milk, and so I was ready for my big Sunday.  I couldn’t tell you who was playing the super bowl that night, but I can tell you the weather report for Miami: hot and humid. I considered this my first “real” marathon, one that wasn’t proceeded by a long swim and extra long bike ride. 

I had done the first 13.1 miles of the Miami Marathon three times already, and hadn’t heard great reviews about the back nine.  Runners told me those miles were lonely: you didn’t see many people, there wasn’t a lot of cheering, and the energy level died off completely.  And so I prepared myself for a monotonous run …. it’s not like I haven’t had hundreds of those anyways.

I trained for a negative split where I run the last 13.1 miles faster than the first 13.1.  But even in training, that didn’t always work out.  It’s usually the opposite: I start faster than I should, and eventually slow down as I get tired.  My fear was that if I started with the negative split intention, I would run the first half slower than I felt I could so that I could pick up the pace as we hit the second half. But what if I got tired, or hot, and missed my time because I couldn’t pick up the pace enough?  At the last minute I changed my mind.

I decided to go out a bit faster and run a reasonably comfortable but faster pace for as long as possible.  If I had to run an 11:11 minutes/mile to make it under five hours, I began running at 10:18. I can go at that pace for quite a while … I just wasn’t sure I could keep it up for 26.2 miles.  This way I would have a “time deficit” and be able to slow down and walk if needed towards the end of the race when it got hot.

I started the race with Mark, the 4:30 marathon pacer to whom I stuck like glue for about four miles until I needed to grab water and lost him.  It was a shame because it was nice to run without having to think about my pace and just enjoy daybreak over the same stretch of causeway I had run with Fearless the previous morning.

At mile four, I met up with Josh Liberman who was running his 100th marathon.  Yep. You read it right: 100. Crazy.  I also met up with other friends who had just finished the Disney Dopey Challenge. One took videos and pictures as we chatted.  They were going to take their time with this marathon, and though I loved the company I said goodbye and pushed ahead. 

The rest of the first 13 miles went by quickly.  I saw some purple hearts for Brianna, I was calm, confident, I kept my pace and the miles passed rather quickly. My only concern was a pulled muscle on my groin which was bothering me.  Thankfully there was Bio Freeze at each water station approximately one mile apart. I got a handful at every other station and without shame stuck my hand down my shorts and rubbed the cream on my groin and thighs; even if only psychologically, it seemed to help.

When we hit downtown Miami again, the race split: marathoners stayed to the right and ran towards Coconut Grove, while half marathoners turned left to head towards the finish line.  I was warned this was a trouble spot as most people run the half marathon and by that point were cheering each other with “almost done” and “push to the end;” both lies to the marathoner.  But I wasn’t bothered. To keep me from giving up, I did the marathon to raise funds for Brianna, a little girl in Dreamer’s second grade class who needs a life saving heart transplant.  I was concerned about my time, but not about gutting out the next 13.1 miles. I had good reason to move forward.

I stayed to the right and put on my headphones.  I never run with music but thought I could use it to get a little boost. WOW! I went into lalaland.  I enjoyed running worry free with music.  I could run right through the craziest of Miami intersections knowing a police officer was stopping traffic while I shuffled by.  On the other side of the intersection, I could see marathoners who were already on their way back and about six miles from the finish.  They were being handed cold, wet, chocolate milk towels (!) because it was so hot.  I had seen several people on the sidelines, and medical personnel here and there.  The heat was getting the best of some runners.  Fortunately for me though, it began to drizzle.  I had to put my phone away so it wouldn’t get damaged by the water.  There went my music, but the drizzle felt refreshing.

I didn’t understand why people complained so much about the second half of the marathon.  Sure, there were no bands, but it felt peaceful to me, not dull.  We ran past restaurants where people having brunch cheered us on, that was all I needed.

All of a sudden, I found myself at mile 19, and apart from my groin bothering me between Bio Freeze applications, I was still going at a 10:30 pace that would get me in well before my limit of five hours. 

That wouldn’t last. 

By mile twenty, new things began to hurt: my feet, ankles and lower back. What the heck? That had never happened before.

And just as the drizzle stopped, I left the shady part of the Miami Marathon and headed to the Rickenbacker Causeway where the sun became unforgiving.  I took my last gel and headed to the next water station.  I knew I only had four miles to go but it seemed like I wasn’t going to make it.  I was thirsty; I mean really thirsty.  I looked at my Garmin and my average pace was 10:50.  I was getting too close for comfort to my time limit at an 11:11 minute/mile pace.  I had to make it so that I wouldn’t have the need for revenge on the course.

Except my legs wouldn’t move and my pace continued to slip. 11:00 minute/mile. I thought I was running, but my Garmin told me differently. I turned the corner and things began to change. Under a shady overpass I saw my friend Tonya who was waiting for her brother who also running.  He had suffered a stroke and used this marathon as part of his therapy.  She gave me a huge bottle of water which I immediately guzzled down. Soon after, my swim coach Lilly and friend Gabi rode their bikes next to me.  I wanted to desperately stop but they wouldn’t let me. 

And then, about a mile before the finish I checked my pace and it was 11:02.  I was going to make it, I could take a little walking break.  Things hurt more than they ever hurt at the Ironman and no amount of Bio Freeze was making it stop. That is when my Wolfpack teammate Brenda saw me and decided to run me to the finish. 

I disliked her intensely at that moment.  I was going to walk.

“Not under my watch you are not.” Brenda said.  Her slow pace is my tempo pace so she was talking up a storm.  “You are an Ironman, you can do this, it’s so close to the end.”

I answered in expletives.

I knew exactly where I was because I waited there for Joe to finish his marathons. I did to him what Brenda was doing to me.  I loved her and hated her all at once. She helped me pick up the pace, and dropped me off at the finish chute since she couldn’t come in with me.

I couldn’t sprint down the finish line but when I got there I held back my tears.  That was hard.  The Miami Marathon beat me down.  I was elated when I finished Ironman Florida: nothing hurt; I had raced at a comfortable pace the whole way.  But the marathon pushed me harder, and when it was finally done I felt relief more than anything else.

I checked my Garmin and it was back to 11:00 minute miles after running with Brenda.  I finished in 4:51.  I know this is not record breaking, and a joke for some of my speedier friends.  But you know what? It was a victory for me.

I got my medal, recovered with my ice cold chocolate milk and felt empowered.  I met my goal, am a marathoner, and helped raise funds for Hope For Brianna.  It was painful but it was a great experience.  I just don’t know if I ever want to waddle like this again!

How about you? Have you done a road race before? Did you race the Miami Marathon, 1/2 Marathon, or Tropical 5k? What did you think?

I Got A Liebster Award!

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A big thank you to Kate from www.runwithkate.com who tagged me for the Liebester award.  Kate is from Australia and part of my Twitter #plankaday group.  This is what the award is about (copied from her blog):The Liebster Award is given to upcoming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. The meaning: Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome.

Rules for receiving this award:

1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves.
2. Then answer the questions the tagger sent for them, plus create 11 questions for the people they’ve tagged to answer.
3. Choose 11 people and link them in your post.
4. Notify the people you have tagged.
5. No tag backs.
So, you will now find out way more than you wanted to about me!  Here we go: 

Part I: 11 Things About Myself 
1. I am the happiest I have ever been in my entire life. 
2. But one of my favorite quotes is “don’t envy my progress without recognizing my sacrifice.” 
3. For a very long time, I did not know where I was from. Now I say I am Cuban – though I have never physically been there.  My parents (both Cuban) have been dreaming about this moment – when I actually call myself Cuban- for years!
4. I speak four languages (Portuguese, Spanish, English and French) and I butcher one more (Italian).
5. My four high school years were spent in three different schools, in three different countries, in three different continents (Brazil, Morocco, US).
6.   I was carjacked at gunpoint once … at 11:00am in the morning. It was scary.
7.  I used to be an investment banker and am now a preschool teacher.  I was other things in-between.
8.  When I applied to college, I wasn’t paying too much attention and so when I got into Wellesley where I eventually went, I had no idea it was an all women’s college.  I wasn’t thrilled, but I ended up going there and loving it. “It’s not a girls school without men, it’s a women’s college without boys”
9.  Two of my favorite trips EVER have been: hiking the Inca Trail in Peru and traveling to Patagonia.  I did them both in the same year!
10. I suck at formatting and cannot get this line to align! Things look very different on my “editor” page.
11. I nibble on 60% Cocoa chocolate chips ALL day long.

Part II: Kate’s Questions
1. Is this your first blog? If not, where did you start?No.  I had one www.hereiaminablog.blogspot.com.  I wrote for about two months but realized I needed more focus and so Triathlon Mami was born.
2. Where were you born?I was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
3. What’s something that you’ve done that you’re incredibly proud of?As cliché as it might seem, I am most proud of the family I am creating.  When I am with my husband and our two boys I am truly home and home is a wonderful place.
4. What’s something you got into trouble for at school?Hmmm …. Its weird because I always thought I was a nerd, but then looking back, I wasn’t always one.  One thing I got in trouble for was when I was in boarding school in the US and got caught at a bar at 18 (drinking age here is 21) by a teacher.  Oops.
5.  What do you like most about yourself right now?That it’s easier for me to accept my mistakes and move on.
6. Who is your biggest fan?Hands down my husband: he will encourage me in whatever I aim to do.  He is followed closely by my kids who tell me to never give up.
7.  What sport do you follow? I don’t really follow any.  But every four years I become a huge Brazil soccer fan for the world cup.
8.  Do you have a hidden talent? (Or not so hidden!)I can say “Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers.A pack of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers, where’s the pack of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked” really really fast.
9.  When do you blog?I like writing essays, so I think about what to write while I train in the early dawn, and write whenever I can throughout the day or night.
10. Is there anyone who doesn’t know about your blog who you’ve avoided telling?I was forewarned by a friend that I am a preschool teacher who represents my school in all that I do.  I censor myself so that on my blog, there is nothing I would be uncomfortable with anyone reading.
11. Name a song you can’t get enough of at the moment.It was my birthday a couple of days ago, and we have a little tradition that when someone in my family has a birthday we wake them up to the Beatles “Birthday Song”.  That has been in my head since, we even did a #plankaday with it!

Part III: 11 Questions for the next group

  1. Why did you start blogging?
  2. Has blogging changed you in any way?
  3. What is your favorite place on Earth?
  4. If you were stuck on a desert island with only one book, what would it be?
  5. What living person inspires you most? Why?
  6. What historical person inspires you most? Why?
  7. If you were able to have a superpower what would it be?
  8. What do you wish you could master?
  9. What do you do to relax?
  10. What is your favorite part of the day?
  11.  Think fast! What is the first thing you can think of to bring a smile to your face?

Part IV: Congrats! You have received a Liebester Award
Live Travel and Run
Mom Running On Empty
Becoming a Healthier Mama
Strength Odyssey
A Healthier Fitter Me
Life After Swimming
The Paper Jellyfish
Because Amy Says So
Found Myself Running
A Girl Runner

Two Calls From School On The Same Day Can’t Be Good News

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Dreamer wants to be a spy when he grows up.  He’d be a good one too.  He owns all sorts of spy gear, and has watched Spy Kids so many times even I know it by heart. He is constantly eavesdrop and later slyly lets Joe and I know he heard our conversation.  Though he has two dead giveaways that makes him a kid and not a spy.  One is a roll on the floor that is nowhere near discreet as he moves from behind one couch to another; and two, a face which might as well have a billboard with blinking lights stating: “I’m lying.”

However his lying face is getting more discrete, a quality I am not very fond of.  But I am his mother, and fortunately he is still not able to lie to my face – thank goodness.  So if I am not sure about the verity of something I look him straight in the eye and slowly ask “is this true?” If it is, he has no problem meeting my gaze and with a bit of sass answering deliberately slowly “yes. it. is.”  But if he doesn’t match my gaze and instead looks to the side and twists his tongue inside his mouth so I can see it protruding through his cheek … Houston, we have a liar.

Spy at work at his spy themed birthday party.

Spy at work at his spy themed birthday party.

I know that, but the new school secretary doesn’t.  She called to tell me Dreamer had a stomach ache but I missed the call.  By the time I reached her, Dreamer was no longer there and I couldn’t speak to him.  You see, this used to happen a lot last year.  At first I relied on the very experienced Mrs. J, who would tell me wether he looked fine or sick and would then promptly send him back to his class.   Delving deeper, we talked and Dreamer told me he missed me, and just wanted to know I was there.  I understood … he was new to the school, and first grade was a different ballgame so we developed a spy code.  If he called and told me that “it hurt all over” then that was code for “just wanted to say hi.”

Time passed, he adapted and is now a happy kid who loves his school. He stopped calling, and we both forgot about the spy code. So when I missed his call I didn’t know if he was sick or not.  I was tempted to dismiss the whole thing but what if it were true? What if it was his appendix about to burst (if you don’t read my blog often, just know that imminent danger is a constant theme).

So I left the meeting I was in and went to pick up my sick child at school.

When I found him, he had a Greek yogurt mustache from not cleaning his mouth at lunchtime.  I asked him how he felt and he answered “baaaad.”  I ask him if he had gone to the bathroom and he answers “yeeeessss,” and then I ask about lunch and he said:  “oh it was great! I ate it all!”  No child whose stomach hurts that much that he needs to go home eats his whole lunch. So I bent down and looked directly at him and asked “are you sick enough to have called me” and he turned his eyes, and rolled his tongue. Dreamer cried Wolf.

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Bored at Starbucks.

By then I had already taken him out of class and so I thought I’d convert this into a teachable moment.  I explained that I had work to do. I didn’t have time to waste driving thirty minutes home, and then driving back to pick up Fearless so we were doomed to the Starbucks down the road, my second office. I took out my laptop and went about my day as if he wasn’t there.  He had a snack, read a book, looked out the window, looked at me, and was utterly bored.  Though to his credit, I did not hear a peep.  He knew he was in trouble so he didn’t dare complain. After close to two hours of this, I told him that unless he is throwing up, has a fever, or is bleeding he needs to try to tough it out at school before calling me.  He remembered the old “it hurts all over” plan, and we both agreed to re-implement the strategy on a need basis only.

We still had one hour to go when the phone rang again.  It was the new school secretary again.  I thought I had forgotten something but instead I hear “your son Fearless …. swallowed an ink pen …. paramedics.”

I dropped everything, and Dreamer and I rushed to the school a block away.  We got there before the ambulance and there was a hubbub of activity at the office.  The new school secretary looked at me and realized I was the same person as before and said: “it’s you again? What a day you are having.”  You can say that again.

Fearless was with the assistant principal.  When he saw me he began to cry.  Turns out he was chewing a pen, it popped, and he swallowed ink. Since the ink is poisonous the school called 9-11 and poison control.  In my time at school, the teacher would send us to wash our mouth and that was that.  But now they call an ambulance.  It’s fine by me … that’s why we pay taxes and it lays to rest the paranoid mom in me … appendicitis, remember?

The very nice rescue team.

The very nice rescue team.

Fearless was fine, he was mostly scared that he was going to get into royal trouble since his teacher had taken the pen away from him prior to “the incident.”

I was calm because I knew nothing was really wrong, and the rescue guys couldn’t have been nicer. Still, my day was shot and I still had a mile long to-do list.  Instead of tackling it, here I was at 2:00pm, a whole hour before dismissal, with two perfectly healthy boys in the back seat of my minivan.  They thought it was great, and laughed and played.  There was no mention of ink or stomach aches; just much ado about nothing.

And guess what? Given all the issues that exist in this world and all the children battling real diseases and real accidents … I’m happy just the way things are.  Because last time we had to go to the paramedics Fearless got staples on his head.

The Inner Compass

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Growing up my family would spend weekends at the place pictured above.  This was a long time ago so it looked very different; back then ours was basically the only building on that cliff.  This helped give the whole place an “end of the earth” feel.

Here, as a child, I would sit on those brown railings, mesmerized watching the waves come and go.  It was frightening to see the force of the water, the height of the splash, and to hear the sound of the crash.   Unbelievably, at times I could feel drops of water as a wave hit the rocks. I would think of strategies to make it out alive if I ever fell in.  There were some adventurous people who would walk on the rocks below me, and looking at them was the equivalent of watching a live horror movie.  They would climb on the rocks and a wave would splash them. They would laugh as some of the white foam would tickle their feet.  I had been there long enough to know that white foam was capable of taking back to sea anything it wanted: branches, debris, shoes, whole trunks of trees, anything.  The ocean could get mean in the blink of an eye.  I feared for those people.  Inevitably, one morning we woke up to the news some drunken fools thought those rocks were a great hangout and were swept to sea.  From there who knows what happened.

To go swimming, we would head down the cliff and onto a white sand beach nearby.  Though much calmer, it did have waves but no rocks to crash into.  I remember swimming with my father, and my sisters and perhaps a cousin or two.  There were large waves and we would swim past their breaking point.  We would lay on our backs and wait for a wave.  Instead of body surfing it, we stayed floating on our backs.  As the wave neared, the current would pull us in.  We would be swept back and floated all the way up the wave, until we were almost upright and could see the beach; just to free-fall down once the wave past us on its way to shore.  It was an exhilarating feeling … most of the time.  And then there were the times you miscalculated, and instead of free falling as the wave passed, you crashed forward in a face plant as the wave broke.  Confusion and panic ensued.  You didn’t know what was up and what was down and it would happen so fast you wouldn’t know just how much air you had left.

One time this face plant happened, and when I finally made it up to get air I saw another seemingly gigantic wave about to crash into me.  I took a deep breath and dove underneath it.  If you go deep enough, the wave rolls over you massaging your back.  If you don’t go deep enough, you get caught face first in it and risk being toppled over yet again.  I was stuck in a washing machine cycle. Make it up to breathe, see enormous wave, panic, dive.  Rinse and repeat. Chances are it wasn’t this dramatic, but it sure felt that way.

I wonder what my parents were thinking to let us swim in an ocean like that.  Then I realize I should be grateful for having parents who let me be, and for having a guardian angel that kept me out of trouble all this time.

Flash forward thirty something years and I am a mom to fearless child (hence his nickname Fearless in this blog).  He is rambunctious, active and ultra spirited.  He is a shinning example of living in the moment where his tunnel vision will focus solely on the objective at hand and ignore the rest of what is around him.  So for example, if he is playing with a ball and it rolls on the street – he is not the kid that would think of stopping and checking if a car is coming.  That puts him in eminent danger … constantly.

When we are with my friend J, she doesn’t quite seem at ease.  Fearless makes her nervous and every once in a while she raises her shoulders, lowers her eye brows and grimaces.  It’s one of those “oh my God moments” and inevitably Fearless is the cause.  He has, once again, jumped from somewhere too high, flipped on something, or narrowly escaped a calamity.

If I had a bubble wrap suit, then maybe I would consider putting one on him but in general, I let him be just that …. Fearless.  Of course I’ll stop him from running into the street – or at least I will scream loud enough to scare the beegeezus out of him – but if he wants to climb a tree I let him.

Because in truth, of the two times he ended up with stitches on his head … neither were his fault.  The first one, see Exhibit A below, he fell from the top bunk while he was asleep. And the second, see Exhibit B, he was horsing around with his brother brushing his teeth, lost his balance, and fell backwards into the bathtub cracking his head open on the wall.

As parents, we have this insane notion that we can protect our children from all danger.  We can’t.  I can give Fearless boundaries but as I teach him to respect them he WILL push them, and as he pushes something dangerous might happen. But I cannot control him, he MUST push those boundaries because he is a spirited child who is learning.  Someone once told me to imagine entering a dark empty room.  You can’t see anything so you explore with your hands and begin to feel for the walls. Once you have done it enough times, you intuitively know where those walls are and you will not have to push against them every time.  But if each time you go into the dark room the walls are moved, then each time you will need to touch them to get your bearings.  So it is with children and boundaries.  If you are constant they will eventually follow them, but they must test and push to make sure they are there.  And sometimes while doing that, they may get hurt.

In my heart of hearts, I believe we all must have some sort of innate compass.  One that gets skewed if not found naturally.  So if our parents won’t let us climb a tree for fear we might fall and break a leg, then that compass get’s skewed.  We can’t find it.

If I handed down to my boys my fear of the ocean, their compass would get skewed.  But if I share my experience with them, and let them go into the water themselves, their innate compass will show them what is too dangerous and what is fun.

By looking at that ocean hitting the rocks on the cliff for hours, I bred enough fear to not do something stupid.  But by swimming in rough waters and getting a little shaken-up I learned to respect the sea each time I swim; something I still often do.

For his sake, for my sake, and certainly for my friend’s sake, I hope Fearless finds his compass soon.  And that a little angel protects him, as it did me, as he faces the dangers of being a rambunctious five year old.

Freedom Is Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose

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I don’t have a sixth sense that intuitively detects danger; mine verges on paranoia that senses imminent catastrophe at any time.  My anxiety used to be worst, and I now have many tools to use when panic hits. I understand that just because I feel something doesn’t make it real; feelings aren’t fact.  That gut feeling, the intuition that might alert a normal person that something is not right, is broken in me.

When Dreamer and Fearless were babies I was afraid they were going to die. I’ve spoken to many new moms and we all have this fear. Show me one parent who never got up in the middle of the night to check if their newborn was breathing, and I will show you a parent lying.  My paranoia took it one step further.  I would imagine my baby falling down from the balcony; I would have horrible, tragic flashes of something awful happening to my kids, and it took a major conscious effort to let go of those.

The toddler years brought a different array of fears such as choking or drinking poison.  Like me, most parents baby proofed their houses. But my anxiety would take this fear one step further: what if we were driving over the bridge (the one I drove on a daily basis since I live on an island), and our car plunged into the ocean?

I have overcome those fears too opening space for new ones.  My friend sent me this and it couldn’t describe me better.

It’s not that I live in constant fear, but there is a current of it that flows within me  and is really easy to tap into.  Thankfully, as long as I am far away from heights, I’ve been able to shield my kids from it.  Somehow, my boys are confident, happy, healthy, and seemingly well adjusted.

They are still in elementary school and we all have much more living and fear mutations to work though.  Whereas before my worry focused on: “what if something happens to my children;” it now spread to what happens to them if something happens to me? This is where my fear of cycling goes on a rampage.

It’s odd because I love to be out on my bike but I also hate it.  There are many times I quit in my head.  Not because of cycling, or because it is too hard, too hot, or too long; but because the process of getting out the door is so difficult.

As my IronMan draws near my training plan calls for multiple rides over 100 miles.

The night before a long ride I start looking at my children differently.  It’s as if I see them through one of those pre-set Instagram filters making them more magical, as if I was watching a movie.  I make sure we all go to bed with happy thoughts and happy memories, and I leave a note by the coffee telling everyone how much I really love them.  In my mind, it’s a “just in case Mami dies, know she loves you” kind of note.

Joe sees right through me and doesn’t give my anxiety any attention.  I love him so very much for that.

Leaving the door I have a sense of impending doom, and if someone says “be safe” I immediately think it’s a jinx.  I am a very conservative rider, and on the few streets where I am near a car I pray most of the way.  And then I thank God profusely for getting me home.

So it was interesting to me when a non-mommy cycling friend was anxious about something she was going to do.  She jokingly told me she was living in my universe for a week and that it was miserable.  It was over-emotional, full of self-doubt, and fear.

Is that really what my world seems like to an outsider?  I guess if most of the time you talk to me is on a bicycle then yes, you probably think that is all of who I am, and that it’s a pretty miserable existence.

But that is not how I see it.

In the words of Janis Joplin “freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” I guess I could be free of my fears … but then I would need to be free of my gifts.  And my family, my kids bring me more joy and happiness than I ever thought I could have.  Living without them would certainly be a simpler, less troublesome, an easier life I guess.  But it’s not the one I want.

Sometimes when you share your inner thoughts, the person listening, or you reading this, make all kinds of assumptions about the speaker.  But truth is that yes, I struggle with fear, but no, it doesn’t consume life.  What it does mean is that when someone tells me “oh, just trust your gut on this one,” I reply …. “or not!”

Riding indoors on the computrainer at Ultrabikex can be tedious, but I have no problems getting out the door.

A Bear of A Problem

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When you live on an island, you understand that you live on land that is surrounded by water; and that to get to the mainland you need to cross that water.  For the Island of Key Biscayne, the way in and out is the Rickenbacker Causeway and its two bridges.  The Powell bridge (aka Mount Miami) and the Bear Cut Bridge (aka the small bridge) connecting Virginia Key to Key Biscayne.  And this smaller bridge is in serious trouble.

I am not a reporter, and I have not scoured the public records to see what happened when and my intention is not to give a history of how we got to this state.  I just know we are here, and there are a lot of angry people.  The beams supporting the bridge on the outbound/ocean side (leaving Key Biscayne) are corroded and it is no longer safe for cars to travel on that part of the bridge.  This means one of the outbound lanes is closed.

For a couple of days, the entire outbound side of the bridge with its two car lanes were closed.  This meant that for a bicyclist, you could travel from inside Key Biscayne all the way to Virginia Key without having to ride next to a car. I had a feeling this was not going to last and so I took my boys, aged five and seven, on a bike ride there.  Normally the road is filled with cars, many of them speeding, and though there is a wide bike lane I would never dare take them.

The feeling was somewhat surreal.  Here we were, riding on probably the country’s widest bike lane without a care in the world.  The boys were excited to be on the “forbidden” bridge and began to zig zag through the lane dividers.  At first I told them to stop, it seemed as if they were doing something illegal but they weren’t and they had a blast going up and down the bridge without a care in the world.   We stopped for a water break, we were interviewed by a TV station, we saw our Mayor riding to inspect the situation and had a great afternoon.

This was not the case on the other side of the bridge, where now two lanes that used to be for inbound traffic, were split into one outbound and one inbound lane. 

There are many cones, cops and confusion and all of it led to traffic and backups.

Eventually, a second outbound lane was opened and congestion was alleviated but the repairs on the bridge could take over one year to complete.  And we still only have one inbound lane.  During the Sony Ericsson Tennis Tournament thousands of cars pour into the Key, as well as in the summer months were hundreds others bring their boats to Crandon Park Marina.  There is legitimate concern that major back-ups could occur.  And if you, like me, were to live here you too would think that’s a problem.

Now I am also cyclist, I do train on the Causeway and I am a bicycle advocate through an organization I am helping to build called Bike Key Biscayne.  So I am also concerned for bicycles travelling the causeway during this period.  Today, bicycles are directed to use a multi-use protected path on the inbound side of the bridge.  It is by no means a good solution as you have to contend with walkers, runners, and leisure bikes going in both directions.  This week, we heard news that there is a new plan being developed and it entails removing that protected path in order to create an extra inbound car lane to maintain the two outbound and two inbound lanes that existed previously.  The only problem is: what happens to the bicycles?

“They should not be allowed on the bridge” said a friend.  “They should go cycle somewhere else,” said another.  “This is an emergency situation and they need to respect that we need the ability to get on and off our island.”  This is what I hear from several residents on the one hand.  On the other, cyclists outcry that the multi-use path should be kept, that we don’t need another car lane, that this is just because of the tennis tournament, and that this is harassment.

Its very difficult to be in the middle and that is where I find myself.  I understand both sides and I have been called “wishy-washy” though I like to think of myself as “diplomatic”.  My limit, my trigger point if you will, is if we are told bicycles and pedestrians are not allowed on the bridge.  That is when I join an outcry, but until then, there are ways around this situation.

Nothing has happened yet, and the situation on the bridge is very fluid with new ideas and solutions being thrown around every day.  Right now, no one knows the final answer as to what will happen to the pathway.

The emergency situation is not traffic.  The emergency situation is that the bridge is falling.  Why we got to this point is a whole ‘nother story and probably what we should really be upset about.  While Bear Cut is being fixed, everyone will need a little patience.  The length of the bridge is approximately half a mile and the world won’t end if a bicycle that can maintain the speed limit (though right now its unclear what that is) chooses to use the car lane to get across.  Cars should give them room to do so as you cannot safely pass the bicycle with a three feet separation.  You are not going slower, you are going at the reduced speed limit on the bridge.  But the world will not end if a bicycle who rides slower, or sees that there is a bottleneck, chooses a different route.  The bicycle can either use the pathway, or when that is no longer there, use the bike accommodations that will be put in place to cross over to the outbound side of the bridge.  It could also turn around and head out of the causeway or into Virginia Key.

So this Bear of a problem could either increase the tension between cars and bicyclists or it could serve as an opportunity for all of us to respect each other a bit more.  I am both a diplomat and an optimist that the majority of us who go on the bridge in one way or another will use our common sense, call on our patience, and maybe even calm down and enjoy the beautiful scenery this half mile affords.

Up In Smoke

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I used to smoke before I started something because I needed inspiration. I used to smoke when I finished something because I deserved a reward.  Needless to say my smoking habit made me quite unproductive.  Now consider that I smoked a pack a day (twenty cigarettes) for about fifteen years.  If I slept for about eight hours a day, then I would smoke one cigarette every 48 minutes.  I would not smoke inside the house or office so add in the time to get outside for each smoke and well, I would have little time to do much else.

My smoking habit came hand in hand with a soda habit.  I needed a Diet Coke or Coke Zero in order to smoke and would concoct elaborate plans to guarantee my stash of both for the perfect pre- and post- activity fix.  I smoked when I was happy, I smoked when I sad, I smoked even more when I was out with my friends and I even smoked in my wedding dress.  Therefore it was no surprise I couldn’t run across the street without panting for air.  But one day, my husband Joe and I decided we wanted to have children and so we both decided to quit smoking.  He had been smoking for even longer than I had, but for our quit to be successful we both knew we had to do it together.

On October 25, 2004 we were in Madrid, Spain.  Our flight to Miami was a mess and we were going to have two layovers.  In the past, I was the crazy lady that would run through customs, out the airport, smoke a cigarette and then run back through security and to my gate.  To spare myself the trouble, and since there was no smoking on the plane anyways, we smoked our last cigarette together at the Barajas airport before we boarded on an almost twenty hour trip.

And so it started – cold turkey.  I remember I joined quitnet.com which was very helpful at the time.  I revisited it today and found out I have not smoked 46,756 cigarettes, spent over $8,000 and have saved close to a year of my life.  Amazing. 

What is most amazing is how your body bounces back.  According to quinet.com, my body has recuperated from the damage I did to it, and my risk of lung cancer has been reduced to half of that of a smoker.  And I can breath! I can run, I can swim, I can go up a flight of stairs without panting.  Quitting smoking was sandwiched between quitting drinking two years earlier and finally quitting all sodas in 2010.  To date, I refuse to quit sugar and chocolate … perhaps that is the next frontier but I am nowhere near it.

I needed to be a quitter to be able to do the things I wanted to do: initially to have children, then to give them every chance to be healthy, and finally for me to be healthy and be able to keep up with two rambunctious boys.  Thank God I did

Though the decision to quit was taken years ago, without it, the active life I have today would be impossible … and certainly the “triathlon” in TriathlonMami would be nonexistent.  Not just because I wouldn’t be able to train with my breathing ability, but because I wouldn’t have any time in between cigarettes to swim, bike or run!